Cigarettes and Tobacco News

Jun 8, 2006 -- TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Everyone knows the difference between a cigar and a cigarette.

Cigars are smoked by used car salesmen; cigarettes are smoked by high school kids.

But now, some states are beginning to wonder if those standards (which, admittedly, might be slightly oversimplified generalizations) apply anymore.

Attorneys general from 39 states and Guam have asked the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to issue new rules to clarify how small cigars – which they claim look remarkably similar to cigarettes – are classified.

Cigarettes are taxed at higher rates and fall under stricter marketing rules than cigars. For example, the youth marketing restrictions imposed on cigarette manufactures as part of their 1998 landmark settlement with the states does not apply to cigar makers.

The attorneys say it is important to act now because sales of small cigars are increasing. They say low prices, and in some cases, sweet flavorings added to little cigars make them attractive to young smokers.

“The states believe that cigarette smokers have switched to the cheaper cigarettes intentionally misclassified and mislabeled by unscrupulous manufacturers as ‘little cigars’ in order to continue to smoke cigarettes, at a cheaper price,” the attorneys general wrote in a petition to the federal bureau.

Montana Attorney General Mike Mcgrath told the Associated Press that tobacco companies are simply taking advantage of the lower taxes imposed on cigars to sell cigarettes cheaper.

“It’s a slick way of getting around taxes,” Mcgrath told the AP. “Call a cigarette a cigarette. I’ve got them in front of me. There isn’t any question these are cigarettes. It’s peach-flavored. Now who would want a peach-flavored cigar? Maybe a high school girl.”

The state attorneys say the only difference between little cigars and cigarettes is the brown color of the cigars.

Tobacco industry officials say that’s not true – that the tobacco inside cigarettes is different from cigar tobacco.

Kiley Lynch, who works at a humidor in Fayetteville, Ark., said most of the customers who buy small cigars from his store are older folks, in their 50s or 60s. But those small cigars, he said, look a little different from the ones sold at a lot of convenience stores.

“To me, as soon as you put a filter on it, it’s not a cigar anymore,” he said. “A lot of little cigars don’t have to be humidified, and they can set them out by the counter at convenience stores.”

Lynch said the humidor where he works has received a lot of literature lately on that very issue: What’s a cigar and what’s a cigarette?

It’s a question he feels will become even more pertinent as the market for such products continues to grow.

“There’s been a boom in the small cigar market,” he said. “We used to have two or three high quality small cigars, whereas now we have about 50.”

Jamie Bontrager of Tahlequah smokes small cigars, but he has nothing but disdain for what he calls “candy-flavored fake cigars,” which he feels are marketed to kids, and not serious cigar smokers.

“I don’t care for most smoking laws, but I’d have to agree that those things [flavored cigars] are aimed at the youth market,” said Bontrager. “I don’t know any serious cigar smoker who smokes them. You smoke a cigar because you like the taste of tobacco, not because you like the taste of coconut.”